A major severe thunderstorm outbreak developed during the
early afternoon across western New York state and quickly propagated and developed into
eastern New York and western New England through the late afternoon and early evening
hours. The event was comprised of initially multicell and isolated supercell
thunderstorms which merged, eventually forming an organized squall line over western New
England which moved east through much of central and southern New England producing
widespread wind damage. Several of the imbedded supercell thunderstorms in eastern
New York and western New England may have produced brief tornado touchdowns during the
event. Widespread wind damage and hail occurred throughout eastern New York and
western New England between 3pm and 6pm with the passage of the storms. Frequent,
intense lightning, and torrential rain also accompanied the thunderstorms. Severe
thunderstorm warnings were issued, in some cases several times, for every county in the
Channel 6 coverage area except Hamilton, Warren, and Rutland county Vermont. Severe
weather was verified to have occurred in all the warned counties, classifying this as a
major, widespread severe weather event.

Rainfall amounts were tremendous in some localized areas
leading to flash flooding in Rensselaer, eastern Greene, Columbia, northern Dutchess and
Berkshire counties. 2.54" of rain fell in East Greenbush in about an hour
according to our WeatherNet 6 weather watchers.

The storm set-up was fairly classic for Northeast severe
weather outbreaks. An intensifying area of low pressure over northern Michigan early
Friday morning moved east up the St. Lawrence valley and across northern New England
during the afternoon and evening. The storm pulled a warm front north through New
York and New England by early afternoon. The warm front supported a cluster of
thunderstorms between 7:00am and 10:00am in and north of the Mohawk valley east into
southern Vermont. Those thunderstorms left an outflow boundary which acted later in
the day as a convergence zone for the main round of severe thunderstorms that developed.

Behind the warm front and out ahead of a strong cold front in
western New York, strong moisture convergence occurred over New York and New England with
dewpoint temperatures at Albany rising from an early morning reading of 50 degrees to the
mid and upper 60's by mid to late afternoon. Strong westerly winds at the jet stream
level down to about 5000 feet provided much of the wind energy and shear for the
thunderstorms to feed on as their updrafts developed. Southerly surface winds in
eastern New York, as result of channeling in the Hudson valley, increased the low level
wind shear which helped support several rotating (supercell) thunderstorms in Albany,
Rensselaer, Columbia, Berkshire, Dutchess, and Litchfield counties. The rotating
updrafts allowed the supercells to produce large hail and high wind as well as several
suspected brief tornado touchdowns in Columbia, Berkshire, and Litchfield counties.
High heat, for early June, and a mid atmospheric level incursion of dry air, also strongly
contributed to the rapid destabilization of the atmosphere allowing for rapid updraft
development and thus the rapid development to the thunderstorms. Temperatures
reached the mid 80's in the Capital Region and into the low 90's in the mid Hudson valley
immediately prior to the storms' arrival.

Thunderstorms, caught in the fast steering, flow moved
quickly from west to east through the area at speeds between 35 and 50 mph, making any one
storm's visit to a particular community rather short. However, several severe
thunderstorms hit the same communities on several occasions during the outbreak.

Severe weather ended by 6:30pm as the last severe
thunderstorms in Dutchess and Litchfield counties moved south and east. The cold
front passed through the Capital Region accompanied by a few light showers between 8:00
and 9:00pm with a wind shift into the northwest and a drop in the humidity.

The following table lists the severe weather reports in the
Channel 6 coverage area for this event.